The Toleration Of Taboo Behaviors And How This Culture

2362 WordsApr 28, 201610 Pages

The acceptance of different cultures, people, and what comes with is the most important factor into a cosmopolitan city. Amsterdam and New Orleans in the 1900’s showed this acceptance by their ability to tolerate their underworld behavior. This toleration applied to all aspects of morally corrupt conduct. The creation of specific districts where behavior is allowed created a spectacle which still is present today. Throughout this research paper there will be a further analysis of the toleration of taboo behaviors and how this culture started and why it flourishes.
Regulated tolerance of the city of Amsterdam propelled its underworld to grow. This ‘underworld’ connects to what makes it a cosmopolitan point of interest. Placement of…show more content…

New Orleans created an unthinkable culture as well a “never before or since in the United States has unrestrained sexual activity flourished so unashamedly” . During the years of 1900-1910, one particular town emerged as the hot bed of prostitution in New Orleans, Storyville. Storyville, was the “legalized red-light district in 1898” . New Orleans census records provide a somewhat accurate ideal of prostitutes however, prostitution was not a highly sought out or high power job, so in its place, listings of ‘staying at home’ or ‘attending school’ create false records. Census records tell that although it was tolerated in specific areas of the city it was only to an extent. This tolerance did not always transfer to the treatment between women, morals and the law. Yet, it instead placed women upon a demoralizing and harsher treatment as a result. Policing within America did not accept that of different and dangerous.
Prostitution carried many views which can be applied to different cities reactions of them. According to The Fine Art of Regulated Tolerance there were exactly four different interpretations and actions that citizens can take when dealing with prostitution. The first is prohibitionist view that believes “it is both immoral and criminal and every party involved is punishable by law” . This does not apply to the interpretations to the mass ideals of New Orleans or Amsterdam. Secondly, abolitionists view, that considered it not as a